Recent Foodsville Articles

Bi-Regional, North/South Local Food.

pinkney@meadandmikell.com — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:48:19

    I frequently complain about the lack of local produce in my old home state of South Carolina, about how a place that once produced some of the finest vegetables in the world and shipped them off to the northeast markets, can’t seem to come up with a tomato grown locally or a cucumber or onion these days because Agribusiness has put the small local producers out of business by selling every kind of formerly local food cheaper than local farmers can produce it.

   Contrast this situation with the local food scene in NY, my current home state, and it’s enough to make one weep. Over flowing farmer’s markets and green markets operate all year round. South Carolina is a surprising place, however, and every so often something unexpected and wonderful happens on the food scene. In Columbia there is Caw Caw Creek Farms with Emile DeFelice’s pastured pork and southern style prosciutto hams. Emile has breakfast sausage that’s to die for, bacon that renders enough fat from a pound to fry a couple of chickens and magnificent chops and roasts.

   There is also Michael Cordray’s Cordray Farms in Ravenel. This farm has been around for a hundred or so years according to the web site, but I met Michael because, like many small farmers, he has a sideline business; he runs an excellent deer processing plant and many of us drive by a couple of other processors to get our venison put up by the best. Michael also produces some beef cattle. Usually by the time I am getting my venison done he has sold out of his beef, but I was there a week or so ago – early for me – and his cooler was full of beef and the sign “Beef’s Ready” was still out on the main entrance. Michael’s beef is pastured beef with some grain finishing. I like to avoid grain fed animals if possible, but I thought to try some of the beef.

   The site states, "Since we provide beef from a limited number of small family farms our quantities are very limited. We process only a few cattle a year. It takes about 2 years for a steer to mature. We are slowly increasing our herd, planning now for the 2010 season! As you'll see when you come to visit, our cows graze at will on grass and hay. We grind our own feed from locally grown corn, soybean meal and molasses to help "finish" them during the last few months. They never receive injections, antibiotics, artificial growth hormones or anything that cattle didn't get 100 years ago when Cordrays first started raising all natural beef."

   I was delighted to find that he had several packages of short ribs. He labels them Beef Rib Stew so maybe they aren’t exactly short ribs even though that’s what they look like. I bought three of the five packages there and hauled them back to NY with the deer cuts he had put up for me. We are having dinner guests tonight and I thought to serve them something entirely seasonal and more or less local (to me anyway with my peregrinations back and forth).

   I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and a little smoked paprika and then rolled the pieces in flour and browned them on all sides. I put them aside and sautéed a mess of finely chopped vegetables – all local from the Hastings Farmer’s Market (carrots, celery, tomatoes and leaks). The pan got a little degreasing with some left over American white wine and then I added in some home made beef stock from the freezer. I put the beef back in the pot with everything and brought it back to simmer and slammed it in the oven for two hours. When finished, I removed the meat; discarded the bones and put the liquids through a food mill and put the meat back in and let it rest. I did taste it, though, I can honestly say that these are as good as any short ribs I ever made.

   Michael has – or had when I was there – just about all the cuts a cow can be separated into. Like I said, he sells out pretty quickly and now I know why. If there is anything left when I get back, I’ll get some more. I have an eye round roast that I intend to do the slow cook way mentioned here. I’m not going to report Cordray's prices because he doesn’t charge enough for what he sells. Besides, he posts the prices on his site. I don't think he ships so a visit is required.

   South Carolina is coming on strong in the proteins – pigs and beef. It’s only a matter of time before someone starts making with the vegetables. There are many folks in the low country and right on up through the low mountains of western SC that know good food and would appreciate being able to buy it – especially locally grown. I hope, while SC is still somewhat under developed and farmers can still afford land to farm, that the remaining farmers find a way to return to growing some of the most nutritious and tasty food in America and selling it locally.

Save the Bees

brokrbaby@yahoo.com — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:04:09

Did you know that every third bite of food we eat depends on bees for pollination? You might not have given much thought to the role honeybees play in our ecosystem. But fact is, 30% of the fruit- and vegetable-producing plants we rely on to feed our families need honeybee pollination to thrive. That’s why the mysterious disappearance of honeybees known as Colony Collapse Disorder is a critical environmental issue that must be understood and reversed for The Greater Good.

What is Colony Collapse Disorder?

Colony Collapse Disorder is the sudden die-off of honeybee colonies that has been occurring across the U.S. for several years now. The bee disappearance is so widespread that it is blamed for losses of up to 70% of the managed bee colonies in U.S. beekeeping operations. Estimates show that 23% of commercial beekeeping operations in the U.S, suffered from Colony Collapse Disorder in the winter of 2006-2007.
What can you do? Don't panic. Educate yourself. If you're not a beekeeper, please appreciate the bees in our environment. Spread the word about the benefits of bees. Support research and Extension efforts to promote the health of honey bees. Or learn to keep bees yourself.

Veni Vidi Vino

franchiseremedies@sbcglobal.net — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:27:40

The greatest wine in the world is the wine that you’re drinking right now!

Think about that!

Why is that?

Maybe it is so simply because you are still here to drink it. Maybe it is so because it is the wine you chose to drink. Maybe other wines would be found to be more to your liking, but they are not now available to you for any of numerous reasons. The rationale is that connoisseurship is personal to each of us in varying degrees of competence, but if we have any capabilities in that vein at all, we recognize that gratitude is part of the equation. We are grateful to be here and to be able to enjoy this glass of wine, and that sense of thanksgiving, of saying grace, makes this glass of wine the very best wine in the entire world at this moment.

Wine symbolizes the best that is in and of us. When God decided that the world was so pervasively evil that humanity needed to be destroyed, all save one, it was Noah the vintner who was chosen to be saved. It was Noah the vintner who was placed in charge of the innocents of the earth, the animals, and through whose story we are first taught the meaning of stewardship. (Genesis 6 – 9) This association of wine with greatness and divine mercy, with the hope of a restored position on the road to a cosmic Christ signifies the mysticism and the grace, the elevated and enlightened state for which we are grateful when we enjoy wine. It is a magic elixir in the finest sense of magic.

What would the mystery of wine be without that sense of joy and gratitude? There is romance in wine, without which it would not be what wine really is – something decidedly more than a fruit drink. We love the wine somewhat as we love each other. Loving the wine and each other at the same moment elevates both experiences. Without the mystery, it is only a chemical compound. Mystery is what removes any experience from the mundane to the sublime. Mystery abstracts the physicality of what we are doing and imbues it with aura.

We drink wine here out of Goomba glasses, small glasses without stems, glasses that the Sicilians and Greeks use when they convene in their taverns. When you remove the artifices from the wine experience, it is just you and the wine and the person with whom you are enjoying it. The experience is pure and mystical for being pure. Gilding that lily with mise en scene gimmicks cannot counterfeit the mystery if the person does not experience the mystery simply from the wine and the company. Artifice is merely pretense. Having the wine with food is not artifice, for the sustenance is also a “real” need fulfilling resource for which there must also be thanksgiving.

Make no mistake. I like good bullshit, perhaps more than I should. In fact I thrive on good bullshit, bullshit for the sake of bullshit – ars gratia artis. All my friends will gleefully confirm that, in the instance of myself, the conflict between reason and testosterone usually ends with testosterone being the victor. But this vignette isn’t about my sessions with good bullshit. It is another story. It is a serious story, albeit you may well find the occasional aside for the sake of a chuckle or for irony.

Wine is, in another dimension, about imprimatur. The gradations of wine, the producers of wine, the sellers of wine all use imprimatur to differentiate, and in that manner to assign comparative value (or at least comparative price). Nations have specific statutes to establish and enforce imprimatur – appellation controlee – denominazione d’origine controlata, &c. Beyond that, however, the simple fact that one appreciates wine is in itself a form of imprimatur. Alas, to the simple and shallow, it is a perspective not used to its high purpose, but rather used to denigrate and to self promote – “We’re the sweet elected few. The rest of you be damned.” That mantra has been chanted for ions by people who lack the ability to appreciate that the only proper expression concerning one’s perceived good fortune is gratitude, not hubris. There are no chosen people. There, in good status or in bad, but for the grace of God, go we. And the grace of God has to be earned. It is not bestowed as one might expect a trophy for winning a wet tee shirt contest. But that is another discussion. Why one would use the fact that they are fortunate enough to be able to appreciate wine as a platform from which to look down on those who don’t/can’t, instead of simply focusing on their good fortune and going forward with that as best they can, is beyond me, but not worth the effort to learn about.

Part of me – the bullshit part of me – would really love to have a room devoted to wine. That room would be chock a block with wine bottles, sectioned off and identified with the wood case ends that identify more expensive wines. What I actually drink comes in cardboard shipping cases. That room would also be adorned with art depicting scenes from viticulture and gastronomy. There would be a small corner library on the subject of wine. There would be a look and feel of a wine cellar. It would be a veritable chapel for the appreciation/adoration of vitis vinifera and the pleasures that abound in that pursuit. The room would also accommodate a small assembly for dining. A meal in such a room is like taking communion. It is bullshit of a grand manner, and, as I said, I like good bullshit.

Reality is that I get to enjoy wine while I am cooking. I am standing at my battery, armed with pots, pans, grills, burners, ovens, utensils and ingredients, sipping my wine of the moment, and happily concocting some plat du jour for the delectation of my true love, humming or singing as I go, and sipping some delicious and pedestrian wine that suits my gloriously happy mood. How lucky can a person be? Reality is sometimes also a visit with friends, discussing what comes to mind, serious or not, and enjoying wine and antipasto, usually with fresh baked bread, still warm from the ovens.

I love my reality.

Today is Thanksgiving Day 2004 – an exclusively American holiday. It celebrates the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony – you know – the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock &c. We’ve all heard the story ad nauseam. Inasmuch as it is a weekday on which Belinda has a day off from work – a joyous occasion – there is a celebratory air. Accordingly, I chose a “special” wine for tonight’s dinner – a Cote D’Or Aloxe Corton blended by that fantastic negotiant eleveur Louis Latour. There are but a few truly great negotiants eleveurs in the Beaune wine trade. They are Latour, Drouhin, Bouchard, Mommesin, and one or two others whose names do not come to mind as I write this. They all produce what we call pinot noir blends of world renown. Personally, the greatest wine I have ever enjoyed was the 1970 bottling of Clos St. Denis (Domaine Dujac) – just up the road a few miles. The 1970 Clos de Vougeot was also memorable and a product of the only real chateau of the Burgundian region. That region is unlike the Bordeaux area in that it is but a fraction of the geographic size, and produces but a third (if that) of the volume of fine wine that the Bordeaux region produces. Through the centuries the land has become so split up that hardly anyone owns enough land to consider themselves a chateau wine producing establishment. Accordingly the small landowners send their harvests to be combined and blended by negotiants eleveurs in the city of Beaune into the great Burgundian wines. Louis Latour is one of those.

I chose his Aloxe Corton because I recall enjoying it with lunch right after I visited his (and numerous others’) establishments in the fall of 1976. That is the last time that I tasted it, but I have a phenomenal palatal recollection, and I recall to this day precisely what all the wines I enjoyed on that trip tasted like. They were phenomenal, albeit young.

It is now almost thirty years later, and the point of this recounting of palatal history is that in the interim I had the privilege to enjoy hundreds of wines of truly delicious vinification, from numerous regions of the world.

On that visit to Beaune in 1976 there was a grand WOW factor. Thirty years later, having learnt the more expansive lessons of wine appreciation across a broader area of this planet, that WOW factor wasn’t present this evening. The Aloxe Corton was actually a down scale experience. I enjoyed a better tasting wine at luncheon today by pulling a cork out of a bottle of Stags Leap Petite Syrah from the Napa Valley in California.

I made a vow today that I would not again select anything from Europe at the approximate price of $ 35 a bottle, because the Stags Leap Petite Syrah at $ 25 and the Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel at $ 35 are infinitely more delicious, richer, deeper, more lush – in fact, exquisite. At that price level nothing beats the California opportunities if one shops carefully. The WOW factor of Aloxe Corton has a diminished coefficient of elasticity – it had not survived the interim years during which I promiscuously enjoyed so many wines of so many varieties from so many parts of the world. Maybe the WOW was in part the product of my being so much younger and more impressionable. Maybe it was in part just being there where the wine is produced and being caught up in the fall wine festival atmosphere of Beaune. Inasmuch as French wines are so vastly overpriced anyway, I am giving thanks for the blessing of being here where American wines are so incredibly wonderful as well as favourably priced in comparison to the French offerings. Only the Rhone varietals remain within the ambit of what I still appreciate amongst the French wines. And tonight’s Stags Leap petite syrah was the equal of any of them. The two are but different clones of the same varietal that was originally brought from Shiraz Persia to the Rhone Valley during the second Albergentian Crusade in the twelfth century.

There should be some way other than the disgusting and useless tasting notes of pedestrian wine yuppies to preserve the library of palatal recollections that people like myself have accumulated over so many years of enjoying the wines of the world. On the other hand, it would be only an archivist exercise, and of no practical use considering my major premise here – that the best glass of wine in the world is the glass of wine that I am enjoying now, at this moment. Remembering what the Aloxe Corton tasted like in 1976 didn’t help me to appreciate the Stags Leap petite syrah. It only helped me understand how underwhelming the Aloxe Corton has become in the context of my experience in the interim. Had I not sought to relive the oenological thrill of Aloxe Corton, I could have continued to remember it as wonderful. You must always move forward, as you can never retrieve a “moment” – moments are fleeting. The entire “lets make tasting notes” movement is but another way to extract money from yuppie anal compulsives who drink wine for the social imprimatur more than for the taste and the ambient circumstances. He who dies with the most wine tasting notes wins, I suppose. The principal problem with attending any function of such people is that they all show up wearing enough cologne to frighten mosquitoes away. It is impossible to sense/assess/appreciate the aroma of the wine through the clouds of Prada and Chanel.

They wear this stuff because they have been duped into thinking that cologne is something that stimulates sexuality in the opposite gender, a sort of pheromone. How utterly ridiculous. But there again, someone has come up with a way to extract money from the stupid/ignorant yuppie mentality. Soap and water works just fine for real people.

Pheromonal stimulation occurs mainly amongst insects and animals. A sow assumes the coital position when she smells the hog’s breath. That’s something Clint Eastwood understood when he named his saloon in Carmel, California, The Hog’s Breath Saloon. DUH! What did you think Hogsbreath referred to – motorcycles? HAHAHAHA! Pheromonal protocols assign duties and give direction to assignments in ant colonies and bee hives. Pheromones stimulate appetite, but the stimulation is so subtle that no modern ultra clean over cologned American or European would recognize a pheromone if inundated in a cloud of pheromones. Let me give you an example of how pheromones work.

Several hundred years ago it was the custom amongst the “upper crust” to pass a bowl of something cold at mid meal – cleansing the palate for the next course was the announced purpose. Utter nonsense then, just as it is when pretentiously done today. When it was done way back then, it was absolutely necessary for its effectiveness to stimulate appetite that the cold bowl of whatever it was be passed by a teenage girl, preferably a virgin – except that teenage virgins are so hard to find – with her arms bare and no adornment in her hair. Her proximity when passing the bowl produced pheromonal experiences amongst the diners, not the contents of the bowl.

I am of the opinion - and I am not alone here – that as for the human female, her sexual signals cannot be evaluated by reference to farm animals and insects. What cologne you wear, and how much of it you inundate yourself with, will not get you sex. The human female is too cerebral for total olfactory sexual responses to get her there. Pheromonal influences don’t suffice. Forgetaboutit!

While the human female has her sexual requirements and proclivities, to be sure, other considerations – especially in an urban setting – will carry greater influence. Considerations of a man’s character and personality, his values and potentiality as a prospective mate and caregiver carry greater weight in any context except purely recreational sexual intimacy. In addition, it is a mistake to think that some mise en scene behavior or aroma – especially out of a cologne bottle – is likely to stimulate sexual urges. That’s just advertising bullshit. If you really want to start a woman on the road to intimacy, learn to cook. The aroma most likely to lead to sexual intimacy is a great sauce, meats roasting with herbs, spices and garlic, soups and stews that infer warmth and generous secure wellbeing. It doesn’t stimulate sexuality, but it does stimulate sensuality. Sensuality is a perception of wellbeing sufficient to permit and elicit a letting down of the guard, a relaxed and secure comfort level that enables –not compels – a woman to move in the direction of desire. A reasonably clean, very nice, caring and sincere male who can cook can make it in torn walking shorts and a pullover shirt with food stains on it. The aromas that arise in a well worked kitchen will go a lot farther to getting a man to yes than any perfume, an expensive wardrobe, an expensive automobile, a Rolex watch or any of the other trappings marketed to yuppie imbeciles. And taking a woman out to eat, while occasionally welcome and enjoyable, is nothing compared to being able to feed her at home – yours or her’s, it doesn’t matter – with a grand meal that was prepared entirely by you. And if you really want to score points, let it be you who cleans up after dinner.

As a chef, I recommend to any man who wants to add this capability to his life repertoire, that he develop about six dishes that he can really prepare wonderfully, without having to have a recipe card or cookbook in front of him – just do it over and over until it is as commonplace as pulling on your boots. This won’t work if you’re a one trick pony. You don’t want to become known as Mr. Beef Stew. I suggest the following for beginners: Roast Chicken (herbs, garlic, lemons, spices, olive oil (always put lots of garlic and herbes de province in the cavity of a chicken – the aroma while it’s roasting may be the only aphrodisiac) – roast it on a bed of sliced onions and sliced lemons with a touch of water or stock in the bottom of the pan); Beef Burgundy with mushrooms and capers; minestrone soup with escarole, grated parmigiano reggiano and crusty bread (a meal in itself – nothing else needed); pasta and meatballs made from scratch (see my recipe in Homage to Meatballs); a great Nicoise salad with crusty bread (also a meal in itself); shrimps creole; cioppino (a seafood stew a la Portugais). All these recipes can be reached on the Internet at www.recipesource.com . When you have mastered these, you are ready for a level of romance of which you never even dreamed in your wildest imagination. If you’re dessert people, it’s perfectly alright to buy dessert. A fruit tart or a Sacher torte with champagne for dessert is magical. For not more than $ 25, you can buy a really delicious California champagne.

There are no rules for the wines you enjoy with meals. Drink what you like. Red wine goes great with seafood, and white wine goes great with anything as well.

Ok. Now that you understand how this all works, the spirituality of it, the contexts in which it all may be put to its highest and best use, get your sorry butt out there and appreciate everything.

Older Women - Younger Wine

franchiseremedies@sbcglobal.net — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 08:53:53

It is amazing what tricks of temptation your will plays on you when you approach the age of 70 years. If you have been fortunate enough to have enjoyed robust health throughout your life, as have I, your psyche resists acceptance of the aging process. It wants to continue to do the things you enjoyed when you were much younger. It’s just one of the tasks that must be mastered, part of the price that must be paid for all those years of good fortune. I am physically the strongest person I know in my age group, but that means I would have to reach back into the younger population if I decided to aggrandize the inclinations that continue to assert themselves daily in my life. Every day fresh, ripe, luscious pluckables present themselves like produce in a market stall. It seems like it is always harvest time. Even a Parker House roll reminds me of female anatomy, and eating a taco is …… well…… what can I say? Did God make women to remind us of tacos, or did God make tacos to remind us of women? Would you name your daughter Medjool, hoping that she would grow up to be a great date? In high school I wanted to go out with the new Moroccan girl because I heard she put raisins into her tagine. Then I looked up the word tagine and learnt that it wasn’t part of anyone’s anatomy. The fantasies are endless.

I don’t want to do that for numerous reasons. While it would bring back many cheap thrills, it would cost me all the things that I treasure. Fortunately, I have daily reminders of how lucky I am, and this helps my intellect to deal properly with my opportunistic inclinations. It is a struggle to deal properly with seasonality. I understand what Jimmy Carter meant when he said that he lusts in his heart. This is the fall of my life, not the summer and not even the autumn. I may even be a tad delusional for thinking of it as fall and not as winter.

Whenever I think of the urges that are exerting themselves, I also am able to think back on moments when I observed other older men following the same urge. How ridiculous they looked. How everyone laughed at them and their out of season relationships, and the terrible stories of how so many of those relationships really worked and did not work. I recall vividly the stories of their performance anxiety with those younger women, and their paranoia about what the younger women in their lives might be doing with other younger men behind their back, most of which concerns were justified because that’s exactly what the women did. The supposed youth restoring surgeries and the awful and obvious hairpieces more frequently than not produced a macabre, freak show appearance rather than anything youthful and vibrant.

There are other natural rewards of this age. Whatever may happen to your other abilities, your gastronomic pleasures more than compensate for any off peak moments. The olfactory senses become sharper. If you don’t smoke or have awful allergies, everything tastes really grand.

One thing new is that no one my age who is not an idiot is laying down young wines for improvement over significant periods of “aging”. I never did that anyway, but I know many who did, and a few who dropped dead before they got to taste what they were treasuring. Wine is something to drink, not something to worship. I have one friend in New Orleans who accumulated a bloody fortune in “fine wines”. His living room wall was completely covered by a bank of especially climatised storage/display cabinetry, all of which failed when hurricane Katrina blew threw town. Moreover, he has a bad heart and lives on pills. Why, I remonstrated with him, are you saving this stuff? You surely aren’t saving it for yourself. Drink it before you leave the scene on very short notice and this treasure trove is wasted on some younger man/men by your widow. Hell, I said to him, I might start courting your widow myself just to get at that wine. After the hurricane, he did start drinking it. He is a happier man for that. I hope he gets to drink every last drop.

As for myself, I have had the grandest time searching out young wines that are delicious now and that do not need further nurturing. As these younger and absolutely delicious vintages do not enjoy a cult following, they are amazingly reasonable in price. Of course the price is also affected by where you buy wine. Here in Houston we have Spec’s. Spec’s is the best mode model for how to run a retail booze, beer and wine retail chain. The selection is universal and the prices are the best anywhere. Spec’s makes Houston a wino’s heaven. Of course, if you’re an imbecile and want to patronize the new groovy bozo in town who claims that he “hand selects” the wine he sells, why that’s your loss. How stupid do you have to be to recognize that “hand selected wines” is total bullshit, and not even good bullshit. Now if he said that he selected wines with other parts of his anatomy, that might be a viable promotional statement worth paying the higher prices for. But since his message is addressed to yuppie idiots, “hand selected” must convey to a yuppie idiot that something special just happened and that if he shows up there, he might just get in on the trend.

The trend amongst the winery refineries these days is to make wines that used to be kept for aging ready to drink with some semblance of maturity at an earlier date – hopefully even on the date the wines hit the stores. Maybe market research is telling the vintners that there are lots of people out there who share my opinion about buying wines that are not to be touched for several years. All markets change. All trends expire. What was WOW last year is not WOW any more. Somehow, though, I do seem to have missed out on the generosity of securities underwriters, investment bankers and broker-dealers who used to (and for all I know still do) order from Sherry-Lehman in New York City those
$ 100,000 per case presents of La Tache, Richebourg, Grands Echezeaux and Romanee-Conti as gifts for those who sent them underwritings business and issue allotments for initial public offerings and much sought after secondary offerings. DAMN!

The process of democratizing wine may have reached its farthest possible point of penetration in the reputed new arrangement between Wal-Mart and Ernest and Julio Gallo. According to today’s report of the venture, Gallo will produce a “wine” for Wal-Mart to sell at retail for between $ 2 and $ 5 per bottle/can/box. If they have a name-that-wine contest, I will submit Chateau Sam. At that price it will free the winos who live in our gutters from high priced exploitation by such highly advertised vinifications as Thunder Bird, Nature Boy, MD-20-20, and all the other snooty tanglefoot stuff that is now purchased mainly at convenience stores in tough neighborhoods. I hope that Wal-Mart has done some demographic estimates of the incremental population of down-and-outers who will now be hanging out in and around their stores and arrange for appropriate security resources. Some Wal-Mart shoppers may have a tough time trying to identify with/not be scared off by the Chateau Sam crowd. No doubt the pandering in Wal-Mart parking lots will increase as the Chateau Sam devotees aggressively seek to accumulate sufficient coin of the realm to afford their daily tipple. Right now the demographics of the Wal-Mart customer group consist of rather good folks who are not careless with money. We have been spared the unpleasantness of the trip to Wal-Mart including the need to run a gauntlet of aggressive, disease ridden and often dangerously psychotic winos. With that customer profile now about to be in abundance, Wal-Mart can now rent kiosk space to AA and to various local Save-A-Soul Mission organizations. Maybe that’s what they had in mind anyway – renting space to AA and their ilk but not yet having sufficient drunken bum traffic for those potential tenants to justify the rent. If you look long and hard enough, you can recognize the genius at work here. I suppose I will now hear angrily from the National Association for the Advancement of Dangerously Psychotic Winos about my unenlightened point of view.

Changing the subject, one should always strive to be aware of the context of any situation – who are the people amongst whom you find yourself – what are they accustomed to – what do they think they are entitled to by way of consideration. If you know that and think about it, you will never walk into a dinner party with the wrong wine. Even if you are dining with Hurricane Katrina evacuees beneath some freeway overpass, you will now be able to bring along the status appropriate Chateau Sam. The wrong wine is either wine that is beneath the dignity of the host or, conversely, wine that is beyond the experience of the host. Always shoot for a wine that is just a tad – but not a lot - better than the host is used to. If the host is a real oenophile, bring flowers. Be sure that you know the wine that you bring. You should have enjoyed it; know what it goes with best; know where it sits in its variety and genre; and be able to discuss it knowledgeably. Never walk in and be unable to discuss it – never say that it is just something that the clerk at the wine store suggested or recommended. That’s like wearing a shirt that says “I am stupid – DUH!” If you can’t handle that, bring flowers.

Possum Trot Tropical Fruit Farm

possumplentious@Yahoo.com — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:49:26

In South Dade County Florida next door to the Monkey Jungle a living museum of tropical trees which produce products usable to man grows quietly amidst the urban blight rapidly expanding toward it. Over 300 different fruit, spice, beverage, timber and poison trees grow in a jungle like planting. I am Robert Barnum owner and manager for the last 30 years. I have hopes of tapping into the slow foods efforts to educate the public in the cultivation and preparation of fruits and vegetables by chefs for enjoyment by the public. I have developed multicultural cuisine using unusual tropical fruits, beverages, and spices grown on the farm. Also for the 30 year period of time I have produced wines from the various fruits; bignay from Africa, lychee from subtropical Asia, jaboticaba and relatives from Brazil, and carambola from tropical Asia. Many of my cooking skills have come from watching cooking shows on public television. I also watch and ask cooks that prepare foods in the many tropical countries I have visited and worked in throughout the hemisphere to learn local methods of preparation for eating of the fruits and vegetables. One of my favorite TV chefs is Jamie Oliver the naked chef from London. His techniques in the kitchen most closely resemble mine. Not necessarily neat but effective. I believe in substance over style with fresh and properly prepared ingredients with multiple layering of flavors and textures to engage as many of our senses as possible usually producing agreeable results from those enjoying the cooking.

"It’s a Long Road to a Tomato Tales of an organic farmer who quit the big city for the (not so) simple life" By Keith Stewart With illustrations by Flavia Bacarella

pinkney@meadandmikell.com — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:49:23

    My dear one brings me all sorts of books to read. Lately she has been supplying me with books about organic farming and out of the way things like ‘fat. A Misunderstood Ingredient’, and ‘Mrs. Whaley’s Kitchen’. A couple of weeks ago she brought home Keith Stewart’s, ‘It’s a Long Way to a Tomato’ and Tim Stark’s ‘Heirloom, Notes From an Accidental Tomato Farmer’. I love both of these books and plan to write about Starks book in another piece, but I just finished reading ‘Long Road to a Tomato’ while on Edisto Island, former home to the world’s best tomatoes and now barren of any locally grown tomatoes what-so-ever.

    I thought to write about this book first because while Stewart doesn’t really grow lots of tomatoes in comparison with other vegetables he is a true organic farmer in the old, pre ‘gummit’ certified ways. He maintains the official U S Organic designation despite the expense and paper work while many small farmers simply can’t afford to comply – or don’t want to spend the time to do the paperwork to comply - with all that government certification involves. Some say the older standards were better while being less onerous and it isn’t hard to see the hand of agribusiness behind the complex gummit certification.

    I chose to start with this book for a couple of reasons and recommend it for several specific essays that appeal to me. It is, by the way, a series of essays each about two pages long and easier and more informative to read by tackling one a day or every other day or when ever the organic food mood strikes. It isn’t something that one wants to sit down to and read cover to cover. You could, but much would be lost.

    The essays take on different aspects of Mr. Stewart’s life as an organic farmer. The pieces can make one want to get right down to the Union Square Farmers Market for his garlic and herbs or drive one to despair over the fate of small scale, local and/or organic farming and farmers. New York City has always been fortunate in the variety of fresh local foods available in its markets. We have exotic food and down home goods in abundance, but the last twenty years have seen the growth of extensive farmers markets supplying local vegetables and meats directly to the city and this very proximity helps explain some of the problems that the small local farmer faces.

    He has to be near enough to the city to sell fresh foods directly to the public at retail prices. He doesn’t produce enough to be viable in the low margin, high volume food biz and so he has to have a local market willing and able to pay the higher prices required to produce the higher quality local goods. As urban areas expand the farm economy has to move further away from the city in order to afford land to grow on. That land is almost always valued more as housing tracts than small farms. So we go around and around and loose small farms and production to agribusiness far from markets and now are able to buy gummit certified ‘organic’ – of sorts – produce from the A&P.

    The essays run from the early optimistic, “Today I am a farmer, a grower of organic vegetables and herbs, and I can honestly say that I am a happier man.” To the, “My plan is to keep living on this farm until I am no longer able to – perhaps ten more years, perhaps twenty, whatever portion destiny allots me. But I doubt that I will last much longer as the sole driving force of a productive vegetable operation.” Along the way are essays about chickens, weather, farmer’s markets and the efforts necessary to be part of them, knives, dogs, rabbits, tomatoes, potatoes, dairy farmers and my favorite - an excellent tutorial on tractors –“ A man and his Tractor”.

    “To take on this land with just hand tools would be a very daunting task. A dozen men with shovels and picks might put in a week of hard labor to accomplish what I can do with a tractor and a rototiller in a couple of hours…. “ Under the tasks assigned to each of the three farm tractors is, “Restoration of self-esteem when confronted with the limitations of an aging body and other insults of time.” This is a facet of tractor ownership I can well identify with.

    While we in America enjoy an abundance, some would say a gross excess, of cheap, high calorie foodstuffs it is exciting to read and learn about local farmers and their products. It is also daunting to consider their large investment and the low return they receive for their efforts. We don’t eat seasonally these days, what with produce transported sometimes thousands of miles. We can – in NY – get pretty much anything year round. It’s summer somewhere every day. Much of this food has no more in common with local produce than appearance and even that is strained. February tomatoes have much more in common with baseballs than July tomatoes in that they are very round, way out of season in the Northeast and about as interesting eating.

    It’s a good read; I wouldn’t try to read it all at once, but I will read it again I am sure. Mr. Stewart , like some of the people he writes about, is interested in passing along his methods and experiences. He is instructive and entertaining and this is a book to be referred to over and over as we gain knowledge about and recover some of our lost appreciation and experience of local foods.

Slam Dunk

skneal@att.net — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:02:08

Crock pots are easy street to a decent meal after a long day at work.

The title of this article is Slam Dunk, artfully named by my younger brother who would ask my mother "we having slam dunk again?"

You don't have to be a chef to master Slam Dunk. All you need is your crock pot and a chuck roast.
"slam dunk" that roast in the pot and cook on low for several hours. Chuck roast is the best for this, for some reason the other cuts are not as good.

Personally, I prefer not to put any liquid in my crock pot with the chuck roast. Because I am a flavor freak I will add crushed garlic or garlic powder to the pot.

After several hours you can add onion, potatoes and carrots for Slam Dunk Roast and Vegetables, leave the vegetables in there for at least an hour. At this point you can salt the meat. I do not reccommend salting before cooking all day.

Slam Dunk BarBQ is my favorite. Once the roast is tender you can tear it apart gently with a fork. Drain whatever liquid is in the pot and use that for adding to soup or giving your dog a treat on dry dog food.
Add your favorite BarBQ sauce, ours is a combination half hot and spicy and half hickory smoke this is great on buns and is simply delicious. Guaranteed to be a winner in your home.

Enjoy!

Seamus Muldoon's Yom KIppur Feast

franchiseremedies@sbcglobal.net — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:32:41

This goes with the recipe just posted.

Two Yeshiva Bochers were once debating the mystical significance of the law pertaining to the Yom Kippur fast. Yom Kippur is, you will recall, the only fast day actually mentioned in the Torah (Leviticus 16:29). Self-affliction, as there used, has come to mean or to include abstention from eating in a culture in which maternal love is expressed through over feeding. Actually, the first mention of voluntary fasting is in connection with King David who refused food when he prayed for the child born to him by the wife of Uriah the Hittite (II Samuel 12:22). Other fasts proclaimed from time to time involve calamities of various sorts (Isaiah 58:3-10; Zechariah 8:19; Esther 9:31; Jeremiah 26:18). This discussion of the mystical properties of Seamus Mildoon's cholent pertains only to the limited context of Yom Kippur fasting, and not to fasting associated with calamities mentioned elsewhere in the Bible. Fasting associated with calamity may be in order for those who overeat at every opportunity to dine on Seamus Moldoon's Yom Kippur cholent.

Why, you may ask, does Muldoon deem his cholent to be a Yom Kippur-level experience? There are, as we are taught, at least two possible answers. First, the concoction does indeed possess such divine attributes of ethos that its consumption must be compared to the eating of matzot on Pesach. Second, Muldoon is simply boasting. Those of you who favor the second answer need read no further, and are free to return to your boil-in-the-bag, TV dinner lives that will ultimately do you in with colo-rectal cancer. For the more enlightened, I shall continue.

To return to our story, these two Yeshiva Bochers were debating the mysticism of fasting on Yom Kippur. One should remember that among Yeshiva Bochers, what they may lack in material wealth they more than make up for in privation and squalor. To them, fasting is an Olympic sport, second only to masturbation and dandruff. To them God has given the power to avoid starvation without having to eat, for instead of starving they can fast. Perhaps, through the understanding of their lifestyle you can appreciate how these two Yeshiva Bochers came to be discussing the mystical significance of Yom Kippur fasting in such a fashion that ultimately, in a flash of insight it occurred to them that something could be so bound up in the collective social experience of a people, and so delectable and so marvelously aromatic and satisfying that its consumption on the holiest of fast days would not be in violation of the law pertaining to Yom Kippur fasting, but rather the highest form of its observance. After all, is not the observance of Yom Kippur for the purpose of obtaining satisfaction? Do we not aspire to be spared the great annual Yom Kippur selection and to be sent to the right rather than to the left? Indeed, how could anyone keep the anxiety of such a day from overwhelming him and causing him to make a shambles of such an experience, if not for the discovery of the mystical exonerative option of eating Seamus Muldoon's Yom Kippur cholent?

Anyway, back to our story! These two Yeshiva Bochers were discussing the mystical significance of Yom Kippur fasting, and were interested in the idea that, with respect to the holiest day, Shabbat, on which one does not fast, the Kabbalah recounts that the symbolism is a marriage between God and Israel in honor of the acceptance of the responsibility of the commandments at the theophany on Mount Sinai (Exodus 31:17). The mystically of Shabbat, therefore, maybe fulfilled through the rite of consummation of marriage, which explains the orthodox custom of copulation on Friday night. This is not specifically called for in the Torah, which speaks of Shabbat in terms of commandments to honor and observe (Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12). Nonetheless, the prophets have instructed us to call Shabbat a delight and an honor (Isaiah 58:13). Moshe ben Maimon, Maimonides, instructs that it is necessary on Shabbat to "arrange the bed" (Mishna Torah, Set Feasts, Chapter 30).

With the sensuality of the holiest day firmly in mind, it occurred to these two Yeshiva Bochers that there must be some relenting, some respite from a regimen of day-long self affliction (Leviticus 16:29) associated with Yom Kippur, and that the mystical significance of that optimism can be tested only by eating. One even ventured that Leviticus 16:29 only applied to the uncircumcised, which could mean that the obligation to fast applied only during the time of slavery in Egypt when circumcision was not permitted. This interpretation is not totally without authority, because in Leviticus 23:29 it says that who does not observe and fast on that day shall be cut off. As both these Yeshiva Bochers had already been cut off in that sense, they decided they had little to lose and would test the proposition.

Now, for such an eschatological experiment the proper vehicle must be carefully selected. Anything ordinary would be an affront. For example, eating oysters wouldn't do, even though Yom Kippur ends in an "r". The food selected must so epitomize the Jewish ethos that its consumption becomes an act of remembrance, of dedication and of soul enrichment, as well as a damn good meal. Chicken soup was suggested first, but quickly rejected as too commercial, too cliche'. Even the goyim now know of its curative properties, and chicken soup jokes have degraded it below the level of mystical experience. Each taxed his recollection of glorious meals gone by to find an appropriate dish for Yom Kippur lunch. Finally, in a flash of brilliance, it dawned upon them, so astoundingly appropriate that it had to have been suggested by God's own chef. CHOLENT!!!!

Cholent---that slow cooked delight for which there was no single recipe. Its universality, its amenability to the means of rich and poor alike, imparted the properties of sacred ritual. Cholent---into which you could put a horse, or an old shoe or boot (and into which many put ham hocks, just for spite) without destroying the taste or texture. Cholent----which has regional characteristics and is different in a Polish home than in the home of a Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Lithuanian or German. Cholent----the browness of the potatoes; the falling-apart doneness of the meat (if you can afford meat); the gas producing nature of the beans that provides physical pleasure to the elderly----the gravy, redolent of garlic and cooked carrots and onions; THE EXPERIENCE!!!!

Nothing makes beer taste as good as cholent!

Cholent-----the recipe for which is as follows:

CHOLENT-SERVICE FOR EIGHT

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INGREDIENTS

5-7 lbs brisket, chuck, pot roast, and some lamb shanks or lamb shoulder - don't be stingy

14 carrots, peeled and cut in 2 inch lengths

16 medium potatoes, peeled and left whole

6 medium onions, coarsely chopped

2 entire heads of garlic, peeled and rough chopped or sliced

6 tsp, each, salt, black pepper, paprika

5 packages frozen baby lime beans

PROCEDURE

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Brown the meat in a skillet in chicken fat - then set the meat aside. Sauté the onions in the same fat. Put the onions in the largest roasting pan you can get into your oven, with the fat. Put the meat on the bed of onions in the roaster. Sprinkle in the chopped or sliced garlic. Put the carrots and potatoes around the side of the meat. Sprinkle in the salt, pepper and paprika. Add hot water to cover everything in the pan by two inches.Cover the pan and roast at 275 F for 20-24 hours.

Three hours before the end of roasting, remove some of the gravy (you could skim most of the fat first) into another pot, and simmer the lima beans in the gravy to be served with the cholent.

Serve with tons of bread and gallons of beer. A small salad is ok, but cholent does not need an appetizer, believe me. Cholent is not for the dainty or the fastidious.. Cholent is for satisfying deep hunger, down into your very soul.

CAUTION - Should you be so foolish as to have Rumanian friends, don't listen to any suggestion from any of them about cholent.

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Cotechino Revolution and Conspiracy

franchiseremedies@sbcglobal.net — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:25:12

You frequently encounter my use of cotechino in various recipes. Cotechino is so rarely used in America that it is almost impossible to find. I use it frequently and have only been able to find it in San Francisco and New York City. I like the cotechino from New York best, as it has more of the authentic taste of the traditional Modenese product that comes to us from the 16^th century, when the armies of Pope Julius II besieged Modena, and the locals survived on pigs from which they made sausages, the descendants of which we now know as cotechino or zampone. Of course they had to beat the soldiers to the pigs first, as foraging was the principal manner in which the ranks obtained sustenance. Zampone is the same sausage, but zampone is stuffed into the skin of a pig’s trotter and comes looking like a stuffed pig’s foot, which it is.

Foraging is a polite word for stealing, and stealing from the locals was one of the important ways in which armies fed themselves back before MREs and field catering by Haliburton Corporation. To be sure, ancient armies did include live farm animals brought along. However, most of the better provender was reserved for officers, and the ranks had to make do with theft. Similarly, it was the practice for camp followers/women to be brought along for sex. They too were largely reserved for officers, and the ranks had to make do with raping local women as they went along. And, as battles ebbed and flowed, back and forth, the women of the area would be alternately assaulted by one group of soldiers and then the other in their turn. It was largely in this manner that gene pools remained diverse and the double recessive diseases of inbreeding were kept in control. Conflict being so frequent in those wonderful days of Knights and Popes and Princes, going about doing the heroic feats that are described in great books about the period, operas and poems, Europe was kept genetically healthy through itinerant rapine.

In those days, a battle or a war might only involve a few hundred or a few thousand combatants. There would be a different “ruler” every fifty miles or so, always suspicious of the plotting and scheming going on amongst the sycophants at his court, and acute paranoia caused by the belief that the “ruler” down the way just a bit had his spies in one’s court stirring up some simmering potion of opportunistic betrayals. Rarely did conflicts involve great armies traveling great distances for some military purpose of empire scale. By and large, it was some local bozo keeping the neighboring bozo down.

But there were dynastic conflicts, as the dementia of local rulers was not different from that of “great” rulers except in grandiosity. The petty narcissistic tyrant’s constant angst and the “great” narcissistic tyrant’s constant angst were but concentric circles of dementia, especially amongst the Italians and the French.

One need look no further than the writings of Tacitus, the Dan Rather of his day, who recorded for posterity the deeds, thoughts and inclinations of the ruler he most despised, locally known at the time as Caesar Augustus. At the Augustinian level of paranoia, it would be a crime against the ruler, lese-majesty it was then called, if a conquered town were to raise a monument to those of its citizens who had perished in defense of the city. The mere solicitation of local support to raise a war memorial was considered to be a revolutionary act. Thus, Caesar Augustus, formerly known as Octavius Caesar, having himself laid siege to Modena, took measures against those who would sponsor or even suggest such a monument. At his level of craziness, it was also a crime to remove one’s pants at night without searching his pockets and removing any coin having the image of Caesar on it, for taking off your pants and leaving Caesar’s image in the pocket was an act of lese majesty. Writing a poem that could be interpreted in two ways, one of which might seem to express some dissatisfaction, was also a crime. A revolutionary crime was committed, and large numbers of people where whipped to shreds, sent off to the mines, torn apart by animals, or cut in half, for failing to invoke the divine inspiration of Caligula upon the undertaking of any civic task or project.

Under Nero, if you failed to show joy at the death of a friend or a relative at the hands of the government, you were subject to prosecution. And prosecution then and there was somewhat unlike prosecution nowadays. You were expected on such an occasion cheerfully to render homage to the gods.

Everyone gave homage to the tyrant. You feared being known as a popular person, for you would be seen as a rival to the prince, just waiting to spark a civil war. And if you shunned popularity and remained quietly at home by the fire, this made you notable and respected, and therefore suspicious.

If you were rich you were suspect of corrupting the people through your generosity and were considered suspicious. And if poor, you must be watched all the more closely, as there is no more opportunistic a person than he who has nothing.

Being somber made you suspicious, as it was deemed that the status quo of society was unsatisfactory to you.

Thus was the Italian peninsula ruled for centuries. And Modena was frequently the subject of siege. It was some distance from Rome, from being immediately under the thumb of the Pope. The Medici Popes were from Florence, no admirers of the panjandrums of Milan and Parma and Mantua.

And again in the early sixteenth century, Pope Julius II laid siege to it. It was in that conflict that cotechino made its debut upon the stage of gastronomy, in the nearby town of Mirandola. According to the writings of the eyewitness, the local physician, Dr. Marco Cesare Nannini, the townsfolk had to use their wits to survive, and began to encase pork in pigskin, creating what is now known as cotechino or zampone. Cotechino and zampone began displacing the local traditional Modenese sausages, and became the hallmarks of the Modenese gastronomic tradition. As food production, especially with regard to sausages, became more industrialized and less a craft industry, cotechino and zampone spread across the country to Rome and achieved a substantial reputation.

Cotechino and zampone sausages are traditionally made from cured meat blends of pork obtained from striated muscle fibres, pork fat, pigskin and seasonings. They must be easy to slice. The interiors are mottled pinkish red to red in color. The meat mixture is close textured and uniform in consistency. The zones in which cotechino and zampone are made include the provinces of Modena, Ferrara, Ravenna, Rimini, Forli, Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Piacenza, Cremona, Lodi, Pavia, Milan, Varese, Como, Lecco, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua, Verona and Rovigo.

For this extensive tour de force on the subject, I happily acknowledge Tacitus and The Instituto Salumi Italiani Tutelati as my sources.

The more insightful amongst you might wonder why in hell I am presenting all this historical commentary and trade fair kind of bullshit. It doesn’t inform you of where to get the product, how to prepare it and with what to serve it. The most traditional dish would probably be Lentils and Cotechino, the recipe for which should easily be found just by searching lentils recipes. I always roast cotechino for about forty-five minutes, to an internal temperature of about 145 degreed F, and then let is rest before slicing it. I would never boil it or cook anything in a broth with raw cotechino, as I won’t put that much saturated fat into any dish. Adding the roasted cotechino at or near the end provides a wonderful dish without daring your arteries to clog.

I guess that I love the Italians so much that I even derive great pleasure from their quirks, and that is my excuse for foisting all this bullshit on you in this article. Part of the motivation has to be that we just received a very large shipment of cotechino from Dean & DeLuca and are going to enjoy some of it tonight in a Thanksgiving clear turkey broth soup with light veggies, herbs and noodles. YUM!!! Sausages and government have always been linked. Otto Von Bismark, Chancellor of Germany, was noted to have said, “If you like the laws and if you like sausages, never go where either is made”.

French Cream Coffee Cake

pandapaw4@yahoo.com — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 02:14:26

I was wondering if anyone knows a recipe for French Cream Coffee cake? I live in Illinois, and at the supermarket I go to, they had French Cream Coffee Cake, and it was good. I went back the following week and they didn't have any and I asked about it in the bakery. No one knew what I was talking about. Let me describe this to you so you know what I'm talking about. The coffee cake has french cream filling and on top it has a crumb topping, and lightly sprinkled with powder sugar. It almost looks the same as the cream cheese coffee cakes, except the filling is between the cake. Thank you all for your time.

Sincerely,
Debra

Purple Haze Revisited

pinkney@meadandmikell.com — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:39:44

When my child determined that he would attend Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington we were somewhat distressed by the distance involved, but felt that he had chosen the place and we would do our best to support it. He insisted that, “really, Dad – it’s only a six hour plane ride…”. We decided to make the best of it and having old friends and business associates in Seattle settled on my accompanying him to school with his mother visiting in a few weeks.

After getting him there and setting up his dorm room I plucked out my heart, stomped on it and then drove a borrowed BIGTRUCK back to Seattle – in the rain, of course - to stay with these friends for a couple of days. They have a plum tree in the back yard (and countless tomato plants and various other garden vegetables and fruits growing everywhere – even along the street curb) and I’m not saying that these plums make up for the heartache of leaving a child at school three thousand miles from home, but if fruit could make that kind of difference, these plums would do so. Fortunate is he who gets a fresh, tree ripened plum right off the tree in someone’s backyard in Seattle. There is, in my experience, nothing quite so perfectly sweet and delightful.

Cheryl says everyone in the neighborhood calls these plums “Italian Prunes”. I don’t know what variety the plums are and it’s probably best I don’t know because I would spend way too much time trying to find something like them back east and would be, I think, doomed to eternal disappointment. Cheryl had picked a basket full with the intention of making a tart. I wished her well with that, but thought it probably wouldn’t happen with that particular bunch because I had become engaged in a close encounter with them. (She did, in fact, make a tart with some of these plums augmented with some local blueberries. What didn’t get eaten at dinner was set upon by me as breakfast the next morning and I was ruthless)

The first house I ever stayed in in Seattle had several plum trees out the back door. I do not know if I had ever tasted a plum, a fresh plum, before that visit, but I know that I had never tasted fruit like it any where else. I was warned by my host that eating my way around the tree really wasn’t a wise thing to do, plums being the antecedent of prunes and all. He said he spoke from experience, but I had to learn this for myself and I think it was worth it. Perfect purple with a cloudy haze on the skin - I always thought Jimmi Hendrix was singing about acid, but “purple haze around my brain .. “ has taken on a very different meaning for me now. He was a Seattle boy, after all.

It’s not as if there aren’t other grand fruits in Seattle and the northwest. Everyone knows the apples and the peaches. The cherries, fresh from the tree sold out of the back of a beat-up pickup truck by the guy who raised and picked them, make travel weary cherries bought at the most demanding east coast markets seem pale and lifeless. It’s just that these plums are so over the top that, while I can enjoy an eastern grown plum or – in a pinch - one that has traversed the country, they seem wanting after experiencing these back yard delights.

When I was growing up in the south there was a fig tree outside the kitchen door. My father was very fond of these figs, but I found them strange and icky. However, I have learned to love figs and I plan to plant a fig tree or two or three over the next few years and maybe a plum tree if it can tolerate the very heavy, wet heat we have along the southern coast. I know the fig can do it; I sure hope the plum can cooperate. There really is no better way to eat these fruits than right from the tree.

I will have to install a serious fence to keep the deer out of the tree and probably an ariel net to discourage the birds. Seattle has plenty of birds, but so much fruit there is enough to go around. Deer are insatiable. I want to go on about the Pike Place Market, but that’s another piece, I think.

[Cookware Price Increases

cookingcop@cookingcop.com — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:56:03

I just saw an article by a chef who also sells cookware to professionals. He stated that chefs and restaurants should by cookware and cutlery now because there is going to be a 40-60% increase in prices in the near future. Does anyone have inofrmation on this; verify or debunk, and will it affect the consumer market?

More fun for the dog

pinkney@meadandmikell.com — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 02:27:15

    I recently had occasion to travel with the dog. There were two dogs the last time I wrote about dogs and feeding. One died of a fast moving tumor. This was awful, but he went fast with the assistance of the vet. The loss left us with the original family dog, a small brindle border terrier with bad breath and a goofy, independent personality.

    I needed to go to Edisto Island, a trip of many hours, and the dog, Glenner, was a good companion in many respects. While her conversation lacked interest she liked sitting or lying on the front seat, especially when there was convenience store jerky in the vicinity. She slept on the front floor and every so often went into the back seat and spent some time in her crate . Aside from the jerky, she didn’t get anything to eat on the drive down or back. Not eating didn’t stop her from spicing up the trip with an every-now-and-then air poop or belch. Borders will eat anything; who knows what she was giving back. It may be that dogs are as omnivorous as people. The boarder terrier certainly seems to be.

    While we were on the island she enjoyed walking up and down a strange road, but being a NY dog she wasn’t used to the pollen load that acres of almost wilderness and heavy vegetation can produce. We would walk a few steps and she would do her usual NY dog deep inhale and start sneezing and gargling and snorting and sneezer clearing and then repeat the act a few paces down the road with a fresh load of new inhalations. I imagine that she will get the hang of it with a few more trips and the sound effects will diminish.

    When we passed a Costco in Charleston I bought her a package of beef stew meat. She got to eat way too much of it for a dog of her size – not a problem as far as she was concerned. Dogs that eat meat make much smaller and less frequent poops. This is a good thing, I believe. Being a border terrier she doesn’t think that the four to five ounces that she gets once a day is anywhere near enough to support her fifteen pound self and one day she found a bag of dry food behind the kitchen door. The walk the next day was both productive and urgent.

    What’s this got to do with food? Well, not a lot as far as people go, but raw meat is important to dogs and it makes most of them smell better. It certainly makes my dog smell better, but if you didn’t know her before she started her raw meat diet, you might not think so on meeting her. I read that green tripe makes a great dog food. I reason from there that deer tripe might also be beneficial and seeing as we have more deer on Edisto than Lapland has reindeer I intend, the next time I take a deer to the processor, to ask him to wash and save the tripe for the dog. I know that a gut pile left in the woods is almost always devoured within a day or two so it seems that animals like it well enough.

    I have been giving her a little dry food with her beef so as to keep her somewhat regular – roughage you know. She went through a phase a couple of weeks ago of eating the leaves from the tomato plants. I think, I hope, that’s over. The leaves make me itch and break out if I handle them too much and are reputed to be somewhat poisonous. They don’t seem to have much affect on her, but she is hard on the plants.

    We got back to Glenner’s home base a few days ago and she is delighted. It’s cooler, the meals are more regular and she can sniff around and not gag on heavy and unfamiliar dusts. She is back to sleeping on her futon, eating her daily beef and all’s well. Woooof.